If a lifetime was long enough.
“Don’t worry, Mama,” Roddy whispered at last. “I know this is what I should do.”
Her mother made a small sound, and stood up as quickly as she had sat down. She walked from the room without a word.
Roddy’s father cleared his throat. He spread his hands self-consciously. “You’ve grown up too fast for us, you see.”
Roddy stood up. Stifling a sniff, she reached on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “Best of my friends. I love you, Papa. I shall love you both forever.”
No more was said of shunning Lord Iveragh. If her parents were not enthusiastic, they were at least silent on the subject. That was guilt, that silence. It was fear. Beneath the rush of unhappy objections there was a tiny, tiny flame. A faint breath of relief. With Roddy gone, their lives would be different.
Easier.
She closed her mind to that hurt and threw herself into impossible dreams of the future.
For the dinner party, Roddy’s maid helped her dress carefully in her newest gown, with its bodice of pink-and silver-shot India gauze and white mull skirt embroidered with bouquets of the same dreamlike colors. The dress fell softly from the ribbon tied beneath her small breasts, trailing behind her as she walked. She twirled in front of the glass, so that the pearls which rested on the pale skin below her throat shimmered with reflected candlelight. Her bright hair gleamed with its own luster, framing her wide gray eyes with wispy curls.
No stablehand tonight.
No beauty, either. She knew there was a way about her; an aura that caught and held attention. She knew what she was not. Not pretty. Not sweet. Not delicate. She was not a daisy on a summer day, but instead the wind that blew it. People looked at Roddy the way they would look at a blue rolling storm on the horizon. And when she looked back, they faltered and turned away.
Down the curved stairs she went alone, past the high walls lined with Delamore stallions in gilded frames, one above the other, a century and a half of breeding blood and bone and the will to run. The moment she entered the drawing room, she felt her mother’s unhappy protest over the dress. But the vicar had already arrived, and Lady Elizabeth was just stalking ponderously through the front hall in the footman’s wake, so no word was said about the low neckline and slender silhouette of the India-gauze gown. Just behind Lady Elizabeth, Lord Geoffrey’s party disembarked from their carriage.
Roddy watched from the door, first Lady Mary and then tall Geoffrey, and then a blankness, the sweep of a black cloak behind them. Iveragh. Her heart did a curious little half-beat. He always seemed to have that effect: that when she saw him she was so intent on deciphering his thoughts that no one else’s intruded on her consciousness at all. It would have been a relief, except the uncertainty was as nerve-racking as knowing too much.
Lord Iveragh in evening dress was at his most elegant and intimidating yet. Roddy found herself staring at the rose-patterned carpet on the drawing-room floor, just as people did when they spoke to her, afraid that if she raised her eyes she would meet his. That possibility sent her heart into the greatest agitation. He was here; he had her father’s permission to address her, and suddenly she could think of nothing more frightening than the idea of marriage to a total stranger.
He made no move toward her. He lingered near the door, talking horses with her father. Roddy carried on a distracted conversation with the vicar, who thought she was painfully shy.
As Roddy listened with half an ear to the vicar’s description of his fall garden, she let her gaze drift over Geoffrey’s lean figure clad in brown satin. She wanted to smile at him and look him in the eyes, but he would not let her.
Roddy had noticed that evasiveness more and more over the past few years. It had been the first real hint that she could expect nothing from him. Like Great-aunt Jane’s husband, Geoffrey had grown increasingly uncomfortable with the witchy gray eyes of a Delamore female. He was more happily occupied now with a warm perusal of the parlormaid’s swelling bust as she leaned over to relight a candle that had sputtered out on the table next to him. When she straightened up, he gave her a smile and a half-wink, and the images in his head would have made her blush twice as pink if she could have read them as Roddy did.
Roddy watched the small exchange with resigned exasperation. Though Geoffrey loved his wife with a commendably rarified sentiment, as far as Roddy could tell he’d never felt an instant’s remorse for keeping up his lady-killing ways as a married man. It was one more reason, Roddy knew, to be sure that he and she could never have suited. Women were the one thing which seemed to Roddy to have fallen through a particularly large crack in Geoffrey’s moral platform. In fact, it had been the chief despair of her young life that she herself was the single female whom he considered in a completely sisterly light. Beneath his honest charm and modesty, Geoffrey was the closest thing to a libertine that Roddy personally knew.
“And what do you think of the Irish question, my lord?” The vicar addressed Geoffrey politely, when the blushing maid had departed.
Geoffrey forgot the buxom Yorkshire girl immediately. “The Irish question?” He spoke with a calm courtesy that was completely feigned. The subject brought a turmoil of excitement to his mind, but to Roddy’s confusion it seemed to have more to do with the revolutionary government of France than with Ireland. Representation, he was thinking, and human rights, topics dear to his philosopher’s heart. They were subjects which never failed to give Roddy a headache when she tried to follow his reasoning.
“Have you had trouble with the malcontents on your estate?” the vicar pursued. “I understand there’ve been most savage acts perpetrated on innocent people.”
“No.” Geoffrey smiled, his golden eyes cold. United Irishmen flitted in and out of his head before he spoke again. “We haven’t had the least sign of unrest. But then, I try to treat my tenants liberally. Not all landlords agree with that approach.”
“I heard that somewhere in Ulster a squire was found impaled on a pike made by his own smith.” The vicar envisioned that discovery with a gleeful shiver. “The culprits were tarred and hanged, I do believe, and good work of it, if I say—”
“How long have you known Lord Iveragh, my lord?” Roddy interrupted.
She had meant the question only to change the subject and stem the rising tide of Geoffrey’s fury at the vicar. The instant jumble of memories that tumbled through Geoffrey’s mind was unexpected, so vivid and various that she could make nothing of them. But out of the multitude, one vision dominated—a strange, distorted memory of water flashing, choking…panic and then deliverance: a bruising grip and a boy’s face very close, strained in desperate effort beneath streaming dark hair.
“Since our school days,” Geoffrey said, glancing at her and then away. To Roddy’s surprise, it was a subject that made him vastly more uncomfortable than Irish politics. He didn’t even want to think of it, but his attempts to concentrate on something else did not hide from Roddy the knowledge that he knew Iveragh had come to Yorkshire with the purpose of courting Roddy. It embarrassed Geoffrey to have brought his friend for such a purpose, and in some way that wasn’t clear to Roddy, it violated his rigid moral principles. But whether the unease had to do with Iveragh’s reputation or some twist of Geoffrey’s own, she could not tell.
“Oh,” Roddy said, putting mild surprise in her tone. “I wonder that you’ve never mentioned him before.”
A single word roared through Geoffrey’s mind—a blast of wind that came and vanished. He shifted in his chair, focusing on the pearls that gleamed at Roddy’s throat. But she had caught it, that single word, and suddenly she wished she hadn’t.
Murder.
Plain and unvarnished. She stared at Geoffrey, willing an explanation, but he was concentrating heroically on his wife now, thinking of her pregnancy and her clearness to him, subjects guaranteed to chase everything else from his mind.
She sat back. It had shaken her.
Iveragh a murderer?
No
. Geoffrey’s scruples would never allow him to bring a murderer into their house and allow the man to court the daughter of one of Geoffrey’s oldest friends. Murderers were ragged outcasts, not elegant Irish peers. Murderers were hanged, by honest gentlemen like Geoffrey.
And a gentleman’s way to commit homicide was on the field of honor.
Roddy frowned.
It made little sense. Geoffrey had no disgust of dueling, as long as his strict code of ethics was upheld. In fact, Roddy well knew that he would not hesitate at violence when his principles were at stake. He was a man of action as well as pen, though one might not think it to see his aristocratic figure disposed as it was now in a prim shield-back chair.
No—an honest duel would not affect Geoffrey so. Perhaps it had been a dishonest one.
She glanced up for the first time toward the dark figure that dominated the far side of the room. As tall as her father, and more perfectly built, Lord Iveragh stood with his head bent attentively to Lady Elizabeth’s desultory conversation. He appeared to be fascinated by every phrase that dripped from that lady’s rouged lips, nodding occasionally, and even smiling once. It was just as that unexpected expression touched his hard mouth that he raised his eyes and looked straight at Roddy.
She was caught, with no possible excuse for staring at him except that she was staring at him. The astonishing contrast of light blue and dark jolted her, as it always did, with a physical sensation. He held the smile, faintly, as if waiting to see if she would return it. But before she could command her lips to move or her face to turn, the butler announced dinner.
Lord Iveragh looked away, offering his hand to Lady Elizabeth. Whatever the prevailing opinion on his morals, certainly no one could fault his manners. Roddy could feel Lady Elizabeth warming to his easy courtesy, and was suddenly and absurdly jealous of the fat old woman who entered the dining room on his arm.
Dinner was interminable. If any one of Roddy’s four brothers had been at home, she might have found some enjoyment in contrasting their polite exteriors with the piquant personal opinions she was sure they would hold of such a dull and distinguished company. But they were all gone, Charles and Miles down to Oxford, and Mark and Earnest off to hunt grouse with a friend in Scotland. It was Ernest, the eldest, whom she missed the most. This tepid dinner gathering could havebays used a spike of his dry and pointed humor.
Seated at the far end of the table between Roddy’s mother and Lady Elizabeth, Lord Iveragh carried on a charmingly innocuous conversation about some recent production at the reopened theater in Drury Lane, a topic which set both ladies at ease and convinced Roddy that he was himself an inspired performer. In his role of amiable gentleman, he reminded her of a great lazy black cat masquerading as a tame canary.
After dinner, when the men had finished their brandy and rejoined the ladies, he sought out Roddy for the first time. As she watched him walk toward her, the dinnertime illusion of domesticity disappeared. He seemed no longer a canary, but an untamed cat again, a natural predator with strange, light eyes.
She moistened her lips, trying to shed the uncomfortable feeling that it was now she who represented the canary. He stood just beside and a little behind her, a location that somehow, without words, claimed and branded her as his personal territory. The vicar, who had been heading for the seat next to Roddy nearest the fire, took one glance at Iveragh’s cool smile and veered off for another part of the room. Roddy felt a gulf form between the pair of them and the rest of the guests, an intangible wall that even her parents seemed loath to cross. She looked up at the earl and felt as if she were alone with him.
He said softly, “I’ve spoken to your father.”
Roddy nodded and fixed her eyes on her hands, unable to force her tongue to move.
He stood still a long moment, and then reached out and stroked the nape of her neck, a feather touch that made Roddy stiffen in surprise. She did not dare look up at him, but sat rigid, hoping that the movement was not visible to the rest of the party. No one was looking their way; everyone was covering curiosity with determined conversation, as if by mutual agreement they had decided to pretend that Roddy and the earl were no longer in the room. Iveragh’s hand moved down her spine, leisurely, a bare tickle of warmth that made her breath come shallow and quick in a way that she’d never felt before. She sat paralyzed, telling herself that it was outrageous, preposterous—that he should be standing in her parents’ drawing room with all the dinner guests and caressing her as if she were a tavern girl.
“Will you be my wife?” he asked, in a tone so low it was hardly a breath.
Roddy felt herself suffuse with color. A mistake, she thought frantically—it was all a mistake. She could not marry this man. Fear was not an emotion that often plagued Roddy, but it closed in on her now with an icy grip. What did she know of him? Nothing. Less than nothing. Blind, deaf, and dumb she was, without her gift to aid her. Naive and ignorant, unable to distinguish fact from fancy. She had made him a hero in her mind, a proud man bearing the weight of his misfortune with dignity, but what was that image to the purpose? He might just as well be—was sure to be—what everyone else thought him: a dissolute cheat unworthy of the title “gentleman.”
His fingers paused in their feather movement. She felt them float above her shoulder, barely touching. Waiting. She realized that she was holding her breath. The moment seemed to stretch out painfully, and still she could not speak. Finally he moved, lifting his hand as if in withdrawal, and the cool place where his warmth had been was suddenly more than she could bear.
“Yes,” she said clearly, and looked up at him. “I would be honored.”
His face had been grim, his eyes intent on empty space as he waited. At her words, his bright glance flicked toward her. His expression changed, and in that moment Roddy was glad of her answer.
He lifted his head as he spread his hand over her shoulder. His fingers pressed possessively into her skin. His voice, low and carrying, caught the attention of everyone in the room. “Mr. Delamore,” he said. “Your daughter does me the kindness of accepting my hand in marriage.”
It was hardly a conventional announcement. Lord Iveragh met the stares with a level gaze. Roddy wished she could slowly sink through the floor. His touch seemed to turn cold—a result of the hot blush that spread up from her breasts to her face. The wave of consternation and dismay that emanated from her parents and their guests made her want to turn away and bury herself in the earl’s hard arms, as if there she might find protection from the others’ horror.
Why had he done that? He should have waited, told her parents in private, allowed them time to accustom themselves before they had to face their friends.
But she could guess why. He was afraid that she would change her mind. Or have it changed for her.
And he was right.
Given time to think, she would have grown cowardly. A day of reflection, and she would have found all the reasons to hang back. She was afraid. The future seemed to fall away from before her like a black pit. Yet his hand was firm on her shoulder, and his body a solid reality at her back. Trust me, that comforting presence said. Lean on me.
She managed an uncertain smile.
Geoffrey stepped forward while the rest were still frozen in astonishment. “Congratulations,” he said, and reached for Iveragh’s hand. Geoffrey’s surface warmth did not match his true feelings, which were a confusing mixture of relief and guilt. The cause, he was thinking as he bent to brush a light kiss to Roddy’s fingers. The cause, poppet. I’m sorry.
Roddy blinked up at him, and he recoiled instinctively at the direct look from her unsettling silver eyes, turning away to focus on Mary again. Lady Cashel came forward at his glance, and offered her good wishes in a subdued voice. Roddy realized at once that if there had ever been a possibility she and Mary might become friends, that event was impossible now. The Irishwoman’s antagonism toward Lord Iveragh hung about her like a dark fog.
The earl received their approbation gr
avely. Roddy leaned a little toward him as her father approached.
“Roddy,” he said, not even glancing at Iveragh. “This is truly what you want?”
Though the earl’s deliberately public declaration had made denial all but impossible without hideous embarrassment, Roddy’s father was fully prepared to speak out if she showed the slightest doubt.
She placed her hand over the earl’s, a theatrical gesture, and one that made her intensely aware of the hard strength in the fingers that rested so lightly on her shoulder. “It’s what I want, Papa.”
He glared at Iveragh. In a savage undertone, he said, “Take care of her, damn you. Or you shall answer to me.”
She felt the tiny quiver that went through the earl’s hand, as if he might have clenched and unclenched it. “Of course.”
Her father stepped back, and Roddy looked beyond him in trepidation. She dreaded her mother’s response more than any other. Mrs. Delamore was standing stiffly, still staring at her daughter and the dark intruder who had claimed her as a wife. Her mother’s anguished helplessness brought hot tears to the back of Roddy’s eyes. Please, Mama, she pleaded silently. Please understand.
Pride came to Mrs. Delamore’s rescue. She waged an internal battle of grief and rage, but nothing of it showed on her face. She went to Roddy and kissed her cheek, managing a smile that was brittle with despair. “Be happy, my dear,” she said too loudly.
The other guests all left as soon as possible after offering their own congratulations. Lady Elizabeth and the vicar were desperate to start passing the word to the neighborhood, and Lord and Lady Cashel were uncomfortably aware of Mrs. Delamore’s barely controlled emotion. Lord Iveragh stayed only long enough to ask if he might call on Roddy in the morning.
She nodded shyly to the request, still feeling the imprint of his hand on her shoulder like a brand.
Roddy had never known anyone who had been engaged before. All of Geoffrey’s courtship had taken place far from Yorkshire, and there were no girls of Roddy’s age in the neighborhood from whom she might have gleaned the proprieties. Her mother had chosen to ignore the situation. She was avoiding her daughter, as Roddy well knew. In one way that made things easier, but no tearful reproaches also meant no advice, and Roddy was left to choose her own line of conduct toward her new fiancé.